sun is but a great and wonderful
splendour which dazzles us before we can descry either the Angels or
the Lamb."

Meanwhile the Sea-farers ate and drank and spread their raiment to dry,
and some were oppressed by the memory of the hardships they had
endured; but Serapion, going among them, cheered them with talk of the
Earthly Paradise, and of the joy it would be, when they had won
thither, to think of the evil chances through which they had passed.
In a low tone he also spoke to them of their small companion and his
vision of the sun.

"Truly," he said, "it is as our Father Abbot told us--he has not lost
his baptismal innocence, nor hath he lost all knowledge of the heaven
from which he came."

As he was speaking thus, one of the brethren rose up with a cry, and,
shading his eyes with his hand, pointed into the west. Far away in the
shimmer of the sea and the clouds they perceived an outline of land,
and they changed their course a little to come to it. The wind carried
them bravely on, and they began to distinguish blue rounded hills and
ridges, and a little later green woodland, and still later, on the edge
of twilight, the white gleam of waters, and glimpses of open lawns
tinged with the colour of grasses in flower.

With beating hearts they leaned on the low bulwark of the ship,
drinking in the beauty of the island.

Then out of a leafy creek shot a boat of white and gold; and though it
was far off, the air was so crystalline that they saw it was garlanded
with fresh leaves, and red and yellow and blue blossoms; and in it
there were many lovely forms, clothed in white and crowned with wreaths
rose-coloured and golden.

When the Sea-farers perceived that the boat glided towards them without
sail or oar, they said among themselves, "These are assuredly the
spirits of the Blessed;" and when suddenly the boat paused in its
course, and the islanders began a sweet song, and the brethren caught
the words and knew them for Latin, they were fain to believe that they
had, by special grace and after brief tribulations, got within sight of
the shore they sought.

The song was one of a longing for peace and deep sleep and dreamful joy
and love in the valleys of the isle; and it bade the Sea-farers come to
them, and take repose after cold and hunger and toil on the sea. Tears
of gladness ran down the cheeks of several of the Seekers as they
listened, and one of them cried aloud: "O brothers, we have come far,
but it